Elder Sign: Some Numbers To Contemplate

I brought the Elder Sign Adventure Cards to work with me today because I wanted to check some information on them. Technically, I’ve been carrying them in my backpack for the better part of a week because I’ve been meaning to create a comprehensive chart, but that’s a different matter.

Board Game Geek lists 80 “over sized” cards, which includes 8 Ancient Ones, 16 Investigators, 8 Other World Adventures, and 48 Adventures. I think it’s interesting that there are forty-eight Adventure Cards because it’s so close to fifty-two. As we should all know by this point, fifty-two is the number of cards in a standard deck.

Of those forty-eight adventure cards, there are nine cards that require a minimum of five “successful” die rolls to complete their tasks. To be considered “successful,” the roll must result in one or more dice showing faces corresponding to the tasks. When investigation is required, I used the minimum needed. (Three dice add up to eight.)

Twenty-six Adventure Cards require a minimum of four dice to complete. Eleven of the adventures require a minimum of three dice to complete, and two adventures require just two dice. I haven’t yet determined the probability for achieving specific results to complete tasks, as I believe that requires a working understanding of matrices.

More than ever, cards that add extra dice (Common, Unique, and Spell items) and Investigators that can change one die result to another, are of incredible utility. It’s difficult to determine how much the trophy value of an adventure effects its difficulty, and how its rewards and penalties effect its difficulty.

Undoubtedly, it’s going to take several dozen games before I can get an intuitive grasp of where the game’s math problems lie, and I’ll have to build that chart I’ve mentioned before I can see how the different tasks add up to prove solvable via probability. So far, the game has impressed me with its playability, over Arkham Horror.